5 ms·

The discussions around crypto here kind of proves that you cannot use popular opinion in HN to predict the future. People were very negative (and still are) abo

by csomar 5y ago

The discussions around crypto here kind of proves that you cannot use popular opinion in HN to predict the future. People were very negative (and still are) about crypto. Market cap kept proving them wrong year after year and we are here with around $2.6 Trillion and yet people here still think crypto is going to die. It's interesting because in startups, you learn from the first day that you should listen to customers and follow the demand. The demand is very high and some people were puzzled how other people where depositing money in "shady" exchanges. Yet, that's a perfect example of "demand" that needs instruments to be satisfied. Reality check: Most of the world suffers from hyper-inflation at worst and inflation at best. Not everyone lives in the USA/Europe and has access to good banking and investment options. Not everyone cares about their governments like in a developed first-world country. Crypto is here to stay and it is going to play a significant role in global finance. Somebody here should read what the bureaucrats at the IMF thinks, or look at the roads in New Delhi. Gov. blocking crypto, yeah, right.

0xB31B1B 5y ago
marketcaps in crypto mean nothing. The universe is full of wash sales, there is not 2.6T of liquidity, a ton of volume is insanely leveraged and amplified through defi pools, and looking at a transaction volume adjusted view of the world, like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. Lets see what happens after the run on tether happens, then we can talk about what the crypto world looks like.
- csomar 5y ago
  Even at 1/4 of that, it's $650bn. That's a tons of value. > like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. You need to prove that. GBTC and CME options volumes/open value are in the billions. I don't think people are laundering money through these instruments.
  - 0xB31B1B 5y ago
    You don't need to launder money through GBTC to get exposure to the assets that money launderers use (BTC) to launder money and reap the upside of a growth market in cryptocurrency based moneylaundering. its a smart play tbh, but the 99% off chain economic benefit from crypto today is money laundering, evading KYC protocols, tax evasion, ransomware related transfers.
    - terafo 5y ago
      > 99% off chain economic benefit from crypto today is money laundering, evading KYC protocols, tax evasion, ransomware related transfers You still need to prove that though.
      - 0xB31B1B 5y ago
        No, you need to prove the off chain economic use cases. The well known use cases are all illicit.
- evergrande 5y ago
  That's like saying market caps in public companies mean nothing because you can't sell all of Apple's stock for $2T.
- aeternum 5y ago
  A more accurate statement would be that volume means nothing. Market cap absolutely does. It's meaningful that of the 18.8mil btc out there, no one is willing to part with one for less than $56k. Even the Tether concern is somewhat outdated. It now makes up only 4.5% of btc & eth's combined market cap. The mkt cap of btc and eth fluctuates about that much every few days, is it enough to really matter?
scottcodie 5y ago
Inflation isn't bad. Most of the world doesn't suffer from hyper-inflation. Decentralized finance doesn't provide a tremendous benefit over a trusted third party. High volatility and high transaction cost makes it a poor choice for a currency. Most of the worlds economy already runs on digital transactions without the need for crypto. There are plenty of reasons why crypto doesn't make sense and it is perfectly rational to distance your financial market from crypto.
- whb07 5y ago
  Tell that to the retiree living on a fixed sum for life. Of course inflation is bad you should see what $100 over 10 years at 2% inflation is. Now try it for 6%+. It’s the reverse compounding for savings people should strive for. Who did you learn your basic economics from?
  - mgh2 5y ago
    Why should someone not producing receive income, unless their money is producing value for them?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - scottcodie 5y ago
    To your example, imagine what would happen if every retiree hoarded their money under their mattress instead of allowing capital to be reinvested. Inflation is an incentive to keep money moving. Generally, we can't keep prices at a perfect equilibrium with economic growth & deflation is much more dangerous than inflation (think about holding debt and expectation of capital returns). Also, social security in the US adjusts for inflation so a retiree will see more money as time goes on.
    - whb07 5y ago
      Deflation is good, you want prices to fall. See electronics for a quick counter example. If everyone stashed money in mattresses (as if), then all the banks would be forced to start enticing would be depositors with “store your money with us we will pay N% interest!”. This would bring out the savings from mattresses to be used. Social Security is just one form of retiree income, to which I’ll tell you because they are the ones that pay and the gov dictates the “official” CPI, they are heavily incentivized to downplay inflation. For an example of this, see how many times they have changed the CPI formula. Just recently the FED put out a tweet essentially saying: “ Thanksgiving dinner serving of poultry costs $1.42. A soybean-based dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs 66 cents and provides almost twice as much protein” This tells you how they think and how they fudge with the numbers. Last but most importantly, not any single group of humans or much less gov bureaucrats can set and perfectly dictate a market. Its too complicated. Every time they or someone meddles, they make it worse.
daveed 5y ago
> Most of the world suffers from hyper-inflation at worst and inflation at best. Not everyone lives in the USA/Europe and has access to good banking and investment options. Real question - you mention earlier to "follow the demand". Is there evidence that demand for crypto is coming from countries with unstable banking?
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  Yes. Page 7 in the document. https://think.ing.com/uploads/reports/IIS_New_Tech_Cryptocurrencies_report_18092019.pdf https://think.ing.com/uploads/reports/IIS_New_Tech_Cryptocur... The more unstable the country, or higher inflation - the higher penetration. I'm surprised people still ask these questions. It this not painfully obvious?
  - ac29 5y ago
    Your referenced figure is an "index of positive attitudes" towards cryptocurrencies, not an actual measure of adoption such as amount held or trading volume.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      The only thing that matters is mindshare and if the opinion is positive or negative. Read the rest of the report. The details you want also exist, but you'll have to pay for that education, only so much you get for free.
dufferzafar 5y ago
Hi, I live in Delhi. New Delhi is one of 11 districts in Delhi. Not sure if you meant "look at the roads in New Delhi" in a "derogatory" sense, but I'd just like to say that the roads in New Delhi are some of the best roads here.
- kamaal 5y ago
  >>Not sure if you meant "look at the roads in New Delhi" in a "derogatory" sense I live in Bangalore(Roads here are darn horrible) not Delhi, but instead of looking at this in an "derogatory sense", in all honesty what the person is actually right. In the overwhelming number of issues facing India- Literacy rates, hunger, infrastructure, social crises, is crypto the biggest issue facing India?
  - dufferzafar 5y ago
    > in all honesty what the person is actually right I agree. I was just nitpicking; that roads in New Delhi are actually pretty good. You should look at the roads in rest of the Delhi. The district that I live in (North East) has infrastructure in such stark contrast to New Delhi that it doesn't even feel like the same city tbh. > is crypto the biggest issue facing India? It absolutely isn't. But somebody begs to differ: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/pm-modi-has-a-warning-for-young-crypto-users-in-india-11637228355857.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/pm-modi-has-a-warning-fo...

by csomar 5y ago

0xB31B1B 5y ago

marketcaps in crypto mean nothing. The universe is full of wash sales, there is not 2.6T of liquidity, a ton of volume is insanely leveraged and amplified through defi pools, and looking at a transaction volume adjusted view of the world, like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. Lets see what happens after the run on tether happens, then we can talk about what the crypto world looks like.

csomar 5y ago
Even at 1/4 of that, it's $650bn. That's a tons of value. > like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. You need to prove that. GBTC and CME options volumes/open value are in the billions. I don't think people are laundering money through these instruments.
- 0xB31B1B 5y ago
  You don't need to launder money through GBTC to get exposure to the assets that money launderers use (BTC) to launder money and reap the upside of a growth market in cryptocurrency based moneylaundering. its a smart play tbh, but the 99% off chain economic benefit from crypto today is money laundering, evading KYC protocols, tax evasion, ransomware related transfers.
  - terafo 5y ago
    > 99% off chain economic benefit from crypto today is money laundering, evading KYC protocols, tax evasion, ransomware related transfers You still need to prove that though.
    - 0xB31B1B 5y ago
      No, you need to prove the off chain economic use cases. The well known use cases are all illicit.
evergrande 5y ago
That's like saying market caps in public companies mean nothing because you can't sell all of Apple's stock for $2T.
aeternum 5y ago
A more accurate statement would be that volume means nothing. Market cap absolutely does. It's meaningful that of the 18.8mil btc out there, no one is willing to part with one for less than $56k. Even the Tether concern is somewhat outdated. It now makes up only 4.5% of btc & eth's combined market cap. The mkt cap of btc and eth fluctuates about that much every few days, is it enough to really matter?

scottcodie 5y ago

Inflation isn't bad. Most of the world doesn't suffer from hyper-inflation. Decentralized finance doesn't provide a tremendous benefit over a trusted third party. High volatility and high transaction cost makes it a poor choice for a currency. Most of the worlds economy already runs on digital transactions without the need for crypto. There are plenty of reasons why crypto doesn't make sense and it is perfectly rational to distance your financial market from crypto.

whb07 5y ago
Tell that to the retiree living on a fixed sum for life. Of course inflation is bad you should see what $100 over 10 years at 2% inflation is. Now try it for 6%+. It’s the reverse compounding for savings people should strive for. Who did you learn your basic economics from?
- mgh2 5y ago
  Why should someone not producing receive income, unless their money is producing value for them?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- scottcodie 5y ago
  To your example, imagine what would happen if every retiree hoarded their money under their mattress instead of allowing capital to be reinvested. Inflation is an incentive to keep money moving. Generally, we can't keep prices at a perfect equilibrium with economic growth & deflation is much more dangerous than inflation (think about holding debt and expectation of capital returns). Also, social security in the US adjusts for inflation so a retiree will see more money as time goes on.
  - whb07 5y ago
    Deflation is good, you want prices to fall. See electronics for a quick counter example. If everyone stashed money in mattresses (as if), then all the banks would be forced to start enticing would be depositors with “store your money with us we will pay N% interest!”. This would bring out the savings from mattresses to be used. Social Security is just one form of retiree income, to which I’ll tell you because they are the ones that pay and the gov dictates the “official” CPI, they are heavily incentivized to downplay inflation. For an example of this, see how many times they have changed the CPI formula. Just recently the FED put out a tweet essentially saying: “ Thanksgiving dinner serving of poultry costs $1.42. A soybean-based dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs 66 cents and provides almost twice as much protein” This tells you how they think and how they fudge with the numbers. Last but most importantly, not any single group of humans or much less gov bureaucrats can set and perfectly dictate a market. Its too complicated. Every time they or someone meddles, they make it worse.

daveed 5y ago

> Most of the world suffers from hyper-inflation at worst and inflation at best. Not everyone lives in the USA/Europe and has access to good banking and investment options. Real question - you mention earlier to "follow the demand". Is there evidence that demand for crypto is coming from countries with unstable banking?

inter_netuser 5y ago
Yes. Page 7 in the document. https://think.ing.com/uploads/reports/IIS_New_Tech_Cryptocurrencies_report_18092019.pdf https://think.ing.com/uploads/reports/IIS_New_Tech_Cryptocur... The more unstable the country, or higher inflation - the higher penetration. I'm surprised people still ask these questions. It this not painfully obvious?
- ac29 5y ago
  Your referenced figure is an "index of positive attitudes" towards cryptocurrencies, not an actual measure of adoption such as amount held or trading volume.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    The only thing that matters is mindshare and if the opinion is positive or negative. Read the rest of the report. The details you want also exist, but you'll have to pay for that education, only so much you get for free.

dufferzafar 5y ago

Hi, I live in Delhi. New Delhi is one of 11 districts in Delhi. Not sure if you meant "look at the roads in New Delhi" in a "derogatory" sense, but I'd just like to say that the roads in New Delhi are some of the best roads here.

kamaal 5y ago
>>Not sure if you meant "look at the roads in New Delhi" in a "derogatory" sense I live in Bangalore(Roads here are darn horrible) not Delhi, but instead of looking at this in an "derogatory sense", in all honesty what the person is actually right. In the overwhelming number of issues facing India- Literacy rates, hunger, infrastructure, social crises, is crypto the biggest issue facing India?
- dufferzafar 5y ago
  > in all honesty what the person is actually right I agree. I was just nitpicking; that roads in New Delhi are actually pretty good. You should look at the roads in rest of the Delhi. The district that I live in (North East) has infrastructure in such stark contrast to New Delhi that it doesn't even feel like the same city tbh. > is crypto the biggest issue facing India? It absolutely isn't. But somebody begs to differ: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/pm-modi-has-a-warning-for-young-crypto-users-in-india-11637228355857.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/pm-modi-has-a-warning-fo...